Well.
I've got a tiny new laptop and I'm trying to find my way through a new Operating System, a touchscreen that makes things appear and disappear when I swear I did not touch anything, and the mixed blessing of adding familiar software but not having any of my preferences (such as toolbar arrangements and fonts) come along with it. Then there's the disconcerting way my open source office software (LibreOffice, which I love) is crashing every time I open a document. Every. Time.
Well.
 |
| Look! It's the Mystery Bugs! |
Also, going from a 15" to an 11" monitor has drawbacks. Some of it is a simple trade-off, such as the aggravation of miniature (and therefore unreadable) drop-down menus versus the comfort factor of a lightweight laptop.
 |
| Close-up! |
I'm certainly enjoying the light weight, so maybe it's worth keeping a pair of embiggening glasses at hand, just to reduce the amount of time spent randomly selecting things from a drop-down menu I cannot read? But some issues are proving more difficult to work around. Some applications - for example, my photo-editing software - have a disorienting, wrong-end-of-the-telescope quality that may not be easily overcome. Reviewing images to transfer from my camera has become quite a challenge.
Is that a picture of Piper?
Or a piece of oak bark?
Or one of the chickens?
Oh, I think it's kale!
Oops, too late...the photograph has disappeared from the screen,
replaced by that doggone giant clock again.
And I swear, I did not touch anything!!!
It's early days, so it's reasonable to assume that many hours of poking around and modification will be necessary. But I can only do so much of that at one time before I start questioning the application, the computer, my sanity and, by the way, why haven't I heard anything from the goats in the past two hours? Even Campion the Champion is suspiciously - not to say ominously - silent. Maybe I'd better just put the tiny laptop away and stroll out to the paddocks to see what they are up to.
And then maybe Piper and I will go for a little walk in the woods.
Ahhhhhhhhhh.
~~~
I hope you are having a lovely Friday, as practice for having a lovely weekend.
And I hope you can read this, because to me, right now, the text I'm typing looks like tiny little ants have walked through ink and are tap-dancing across my itty-bitty screen.
Happy Weekend!
~~~~~
Lol nothing worse than trying to get the hang of new fangled gadgets. Know the feeling... too well!!
ReplyDeleteHave a good weekend too :)
It is frustrating trying to get accustomed to new technology. Hang in there
ReplyDeleteIt's always the same, isn't it? It's the main reason I delay replacing a computer until it's almost too late. Of course expense is another pretty good reason! Ugh. It's a lot of bales of hay, this laptop.
DeleteI am having a similar experience as you... Due to my new computer, I've had to totally change my habits in terms of photo-editing etc. Plus, it has no DVD drive and I have no fast internet - so how am I supposed to install new software. It took a week (and $59 for an external DVD drive) to figure that one out - so I completely understand your aggravation!
ReplyDeleteI hope that you and Piper have a peaceful walk. We are deep in the monsoons so afternoons must be spent indoors while it rumbles and rains outside...
No optical drive here, either, which is part of the light weight. I expect I'll end up having to buy an external, too...hopefully not this week though.
DeleteArghghghg, sounds so familiar. My fairly new laptop tends to suddenly veer off and show me the last document I downloaded when I'm in the middle of writing something completely unrelated. I had to figure out the pathway back to where I ws. I still don't know why it does it. And it's a touchscreen, which I didn't know until I tried to brush a moth off the screen.....draw a veil over that one.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, stick with it and you will conquer. And remember control plus center wheel on mouse enlarges whatever is there on the screen. Unless it replaces it all with an update from Huffpost, or something.
I can relate to the moth thing!
DeleteThis is my first touchscreen on any device, and I suppose I'll soon find it useful in some ways, but at the moment it is disconcerting to have things appear and disappear with no apparent rhyme or reason. A metaphor for life I suppose,,,but that's not what I'm looking for in a laptop!
I can always count on a good laugh when I stop by. When my husband first bought me a mini HP, I had a hard time adjusting to the smaller screen and keyboard, but after a week or so, it was all okay ... until last year, when I slammed it shut, and that was that. Now I have a large Compaq which is always crashing even though I don't do anything other than blog and save pictures to it. Very aggravating. But I'm not going to change or do anything. As long as it works, it works. Good luck figuring things out. Have a great weekend. Tammy
ReplyDeleteOh dear, I am sorry you are also going through the new laptop blues, but I am glad you have one.
ReplyDeleteAs I was typing, I hit the comma key by accident, and the font shrunk to tiny dot size. I didn't know they make a font this small.
WAIT! On Yahoo answers (favorite answer website) I found an answer....Control + 0 changes the font back to default size
DeleteCtrl + 0 (zero)
I love it that you discovered a new bizarre thing AND found a fix for it so quickly! Well done! :)
DeleteOK, lovely photos, but those damn bugs are really getting to me! Are you SURE it's not this? http://bugguide.net/node/view/409325
ReplyDeleteXOXOXO
I posted those pictures for you, Tanya! :)
DeleteAnd I think you're right. The first pictures I looked at showed bugs with patterned wings, which these clearly do not. But now that I've looked at more pictures with varied wing colors - and now that I've got enlarged images of "my" bugs - they certainly do look similar! Thanks :)
And today we have a mystery flower... ;)
Delete